A digest. One to three times a week.

Dick Wolf

I have to thank the Chennai office for recommending it. Two of the more amazing quotes come from Dick Wolf:

Dick Wolf: Most dramas make my skin itch because they give you personal stuff with a soup ladle. When you go into work and look around your office, how many of your colleagues’ apartments have you been in? Ours is a workplace show. All we’re interested in is what happens in the eight or ten hours when the characters are actually at work.

There’s also no time. That’s why there are no establishing shots, no driving shots, no people walking into buildings. Each half of the show is the equivalent to a normal hour cop show or legal show. You’re essentially doing an hour’s worth of content in half the time.

I grew up on N. Y. P. D., the original, and Naked City. Naked City is much more the prototype for Law & Order than anything else on TV. The best pictures about conflict are the ones that almost look like news. Like The Battle of Algiers.

Later, Dick Wolf weighs in on the contractual disputes at Friends. The Friends cast all banded together to negotiate their contracts, and the result was they got huge amounts of money. Dick Wolf would’ve handled it differently:

Dick Wolf: When they made the Friends deal, the $100,000 apiece [per episode] deal, I was pretty upset. What I would have done was come out the first day, say I was disappointed the cast had chosen to negotiate in the press, and I had the unpleasant news that Matt LeBlanc wouldn’t be on the show next year. I guarantee that you’d never have gotten to a second name.